(Resumed) Solstice

[Em]

Selene held out her hand and before I knew it, it was clasped in my own and we had set foot walking the inner circumference of the West Outer Gate. It was only by her omnipresent giggle that I had even become aware of the act.

"Isn't this nice?" she asked. "It's almost like we're on a date!"

Somewhere in my brain, a miniature Em just dropped a plate holding his- er, their? her? thoughts on the incredibly dense surface of the inside of my skull. "Hey, hey!"

The first "Hey" was in my normal, boring pitch, but not the second.

"Ha! Can't hide from me, Em!" Selene thankfully broke the hand-hold, but she chose to pirouette before me with a devilish smirk on her face.

"I'm not trying to hide, you little-" I slammed my teeth shut.

"Brat? Sack of manure?" Selene skipped backward away from me, maintaining her gaze on my eyes. "Reprehensible damsel of villainy?" She stuck her tongue out.

I lowered my legs into a lunge. Get her, a voice in me said with a voice dire yet playful. I felt Magick envelop my limbs.

"Ah-ah-ah!" Selene wagged her finger. "You're still in recovery, remember?"

Tch. I sighed in defeat, the Magick fading out from me. "If you keep teasing me," my voice spoke, a false confidence I hadn't lacing the air, "it won't be enough to save you, Selene~" What? Why am I speaking like that?

Selene shook her head, her hair swishing in the wind. She strode to me, took my hand, and tugged gently, enticing me to stand.

I followed her lead, rising before her.

"I would apologise, but you seem much more alive for it."

"Then you're not sorry at all!" I tilted my head and continued my walk.

Selene bounded like a bun beside me and slowed to a skip. "You're right. So! Anything you wanna talk about? Cause I have questions about you if you don't about me."

I didn't know one could skip so slowly. "Um..."

"Soo-"

"Where'd you come from?" Anything to stop her from embarrassing me further.

"Like where I was before coming here, or where I originally hailed?"

My eyelids slid further away from each other. "Uh, um... both?"

"Do you want both?"

Oh, not you too! "Yes I want both!"

Selene beamed a wide and serene smile with her eyes so perfectly, lusciously close-

Again?! What am I thinking!

"Well! I'll give them in the order I said, but the second one's a secret. Kay?"

I tripped and fell flat on my face.

"Emily!"

I pushed myself up with my hands and spat out some dirt. "We just met, Selene!"

Another gosh-darned chirp. "I know."

"Why are you trusting me with secrets?!"

"'Cause your Soul'll break if you betray me."

My thoughts drained out. Was this a threat? No, Selene wouldn't threaten, not with that tone. My Magick pulsed around me, and I felt nary a trace of fear.

Was Selene so utterly confident I wouldn't betray her? After what she just saw happen with Ansel?! And after I ran away from Jacqueline?! Not to mention Jessica! How?!

A hand took its seat gently atop my hair. "I'll take that as a yes." Selene gripped my hair gently, tugging on it softly to entice me to stand up, preferably before mischief tempted her to pull hard.

I scrambled to my feet just in time, or so I felt. In reality, I'd never know whether she would actually drag me by my scalp.

"So I spent most of my years living in Dak Aerfal. Physic Crystal, to be precise. You know, that shy hamlet House Doyle likes to lord over."

Dak Aerfal, the province on Sollun's southern border, bleeding into an ocean. I never did learn what was past that border, but I've heard tales, though mostly told by bards in taverns with ales too plenty, and also back before Jacqueline became a warlord.

Warlady? Nah. Warlord. After seeing such grace in, well, Grace, and Selene in particular, I could never in my life put Jacqueline in the same category. There was... something wrong with me, I was very sure. But old wounds still hurt, and I was very bitter yet about her sabotaging my Magick practice, accident or no. She'd best pray that was an accident.

And House Doyle... wait... "You're a noble?!"

Selene broke into such levity that I swore she even levitated. Or maybe I was just dreaming.

"Well, given they're the only practicing doctors in the province?" Selene mimed weighing two different objects in her hands. "Yeah, I guess I am in a sense."

I blinked. So she lived like a princess, talked like a princess, yet... held some distance from being one?

"Anyway, that's the normal part. Now the secret part."

So if her being the daughter of aristocracy was no secret at all... What was?

"Ready?"

My body broke out in shivers to shake off the shock. "Y-yeah. Sorry. That-"

"Yeah, with all the Magus-related commotion being centralised here I don't fault you for not knowing about them. Doesn't help that I don't really talk about my upbringing."

I held my head to stave a headache I thought might be encroaching on me. "Okay, so if this friend I just picked up is essentially a foreign dignitary... and that's not the secret..."

A light, sharp nip bit my cheek. I uncovered my eyes to Selene's grin, her hand whose forefinger had to have flicked me, and her face leaning close to my ear.

Lightning arced in my spine from the sound of her whisper. "I'm not from Sollun."

My legs backpedaled, but she gripped my wrist firm so I couldn't get away without breaking her grip. Which of course I did not.

"Don't tell anyone, but I was born in Kalseit."

My heart skipped. So when she told me the Emissaries were hiding in Kalseit... My vision warbled for a moment.

Selene's voice raised to a soft speaking calibre. "That's very sweet of you, but please don't pay them any mind." She quietened back down. "My real family abandoned me at a young age, and they had the gall to name me Delight of all things."

Ignoring the fluttering in my stomach from her whisper, I blinked and tilted my head. "Wait-"

"Shh!"

I froze.

"It's okay, just, quiet."

I nodded quickly and matched her whisper with my own. "Why is Delight such a bad name that you changed it to Selene?" My mind stung with embarrassment immediately after: given the choice between Selene and Delight, Selene was by far the superior name. Never mind that she clearly hated her original name. 

I swore to myself in what I assumed to be the privacy of my mind that I would never, ever use it.

Selene waved her hand out, indignant and seemingly outraged that I didn't pick something up, offended by me not seeing the obviousness of the offence.

I blinked. "I, uh, I don't understand."

An exasperated sigh left her lips. Then, she leapt to me, ensnaring me in a state of embrace. "Emily?"

It took me several seconds to piece myself together. "Y-yeah?"

"Never change." She parted the hug.

Now it was my turn. I gestured toward my body, fanning my hands from my head to my waist. "What about when I'm done dealing with Aegis and no longer need my Magick?" I didn't feel that much now, but if Selene was right and I was truly trans, then I was going to hate being trapped in a man's body sooner or later. Might as well ask now.

"Well okay fine." She pouted to punctuate her sentence. "You know what I mean, though."

I nodded as if I did and dropped the matter.

Selene threw her hands out in a gesture to accept the sky itself as someone to hold close to her. "Heavens, it feels so good to get that off my chest!" She leaned back and let her body fall hard on the grass. "And you seem in high spirits too!"

"How- how do you mean?" My cheeks started burning up again and azure coated me for a brief moment.

"The Spirit heals by way of affirmation, remember?" Selene kept her eyes closed, her lovely azure-robed body resting serenely on the grass.

Serene, Selene. My heart filled with warmth. "Ah, yeah?"

"You in particular like to bond with people, to share your light, and to be trusted as a friend," she said with a squeak.

I clutched my chest and my eyes started to fill with water.

"And the teasing helps too."

"HEY!!"

The two of us erupted in full fits of laughter.

"Haha- One more thing!" Selene kicked off the grass with her hand and flipped back to standing. "If you're in a pinch, don't try to force your Magick. Nearly every calling of faith in Taikur prescribes prayer for a reason, you know?"

"Oohkay?" What did religion have to do with Magick? 

Selene walked up and reached her hand for my heart.

I leapt back as it phased through a nonexistent breast. After a moment to account for what happened, I stepped back to let her touch my chest.

"Goodness Em." Selene shook her head. "Fidgety nature aside, we should pray not to a deity we've never seen before but to ourselves, the inner spirits we yearn to release into the wild! That goes doubly so since we're both Spirit Magi!"

"O-oh right." My cheeks flushed again. "S-sorry. That must have been a stupid ques-"

Another slap interrupted me. "No. Bad." Selene followed her scolding with a hug. "Em, you're crazy smart and determined to make it this far despite everything you had going against you. Got it?"

"Y-yes ma'am."

"Good." She resumed her walking pace. "Now that we've gotten some heavy stuff out of the way, let's just enjoy each other's company, shall we?"

And walk in silence we did, enjoying each other's presence the whole way. It felt phantasmal, to just take a slow day like this. I took some time to get a feel for my Magick, my Spirit, and, well, it certainly felt easier to call upon my Æther.

Maybe I had healed from this.

We eventually arrived right before my dormitory building and Selene curtsied before me, taking my hand into hers and raising it to her lips. "Thank you for this, Em."

I was at a loss for words or even actions. That act right there locked me in stasis.

Selene had just kissed my hand. The rest of the night, or even the days following, bore little import in comparison.